Ferns

I’ve been dreaming of plants recently. This statement should be of no surprise to those who know me. Those who know me most likely envision my home being a personal botanical garden. Shelves and windowsills lined with vines, leaves that wake in the day and tuck themselves in at night. Shades of green, mulberry, and speckles or stripes of white. My last piece was even focused on trees and moss.

But these dreams, they are different. I dream that I am going about my day and there is suddenly a potted fern in my path. The fern is presented to me as a gift, but never in the form of warm smiles and an exchange. It’s always placed somewhere in my usual path for the day, intentional and an interruption to the routine. Outside of my car, on my doorstep, outside of the door to my office, I always feel the sharp inhale and the fluttering in my chest from the surprise.

This didn’t dawn on me until I went for a walk in a local park today. Calling it a park feels like a formality. Like a room of people with brows furrowed and glistening from sweat thrusted the label upon it, knowing it was a misnomer. There isn’t a perfectly manicured lawn with a symphony of children’s laughter and birdsong. This is a forest, as it is. The only sign of man’s touch being the carefully curated signs etched in wood. The dusty, beige trails created by thousands of footprints before yours. The trees yawning miles high, stretching out their arms to shelter you. The flora cool and humid, lightly grazing your face. In this forest, the ferns are not like my dream. They’re larger, bushier, standing at roughly shoulder height. I graze my fingers across the length of the long, thin spindles that explode with little green leaves. I stop to run the pads of my fingertips over the moss on every tree, uncharacteristically dry on this day but velvety as ever. I cast my gaze up, toward the careful umbrella of branches and leaves above me. In here, I am safe and protected amongst the trees who have beheld many lives over time. In the deep shades of basil and moss, small pockets of chartreuse where the light breaks through are reminders that I am kept but not suffocated.

Maybe in my dreams, these gifts are permission from my loved ones to escape. A subtle nod to heave the hesitation from my shoulders, to truly live and to thrive. As I ambled my way through the blankets of brush, I could not remember the last time I allowed myself to just wander. Since the day I got sober, my focus has been on survival. On fighting. Fighting to breathe life back into myself, fighting to rebuild and to create something from nothing. Fighting to find who I am and my place in the world. Staying the course while pummeling through every barrier up the mountain. Seeking comfort for so long in the material, in the social status, instead of myself. For the first time in 8, let alone 35, years I feel I am coming to the greatest understanding of my life. All that matters is here and now. No fighting, no resistance. I am exactly who I am supposed to be and where I am supposed to be at this moment in time. I only answer external demands if I choose. I’m not resigning or settling, sitting in discomfort for eternity; I am letting go and resting in neutrality. I am embracing the autonomy that has been mine to hold all along. I am finally finding balance.

Maybe this is why the cry from deep within me to escape back to nature has been so strong that I could not ignore it anymore. This is where my balance lies. I am tipping the scales back to be my most authentic self. It all comes together as I am brought to a halt in my wandering. There is a tree with a sturdy, thick trunk despite the crevice in the middle. As I draw closer to it, amongst the taupe and grainy wood is char. From within the crevice, in the heart of the base of this tree, the bark is ashen. There is no decay, the burnt wood holds strong. My gaze is drawn from the streaks of charred wood to the moss that slowly reclaims its wound, then upward towards the atmosphere where the tree continues to climb and soar toward the canvas of chartreuse, glittering and undulating underneath the sun.

Maybe this is why I am drawn to nature. In my time in the Pacific Northwest, I have seen the devastation wildfires can create. But the trees still stand, the moss crawls back, the bark heals its wounds. The tree reminds me that I continue to heal and rebuild stronger and greater. Though I might still be marked by the things that could have ended me, and they will always be a part of me, time will see those moments reclaimed. As long as I remain nourished and cared for, I too become hearty and strong.